With budgets tightening, county collaboration likely

Although budget cuts have yet to become official in Lansing, county officials are certain they will be charged to do more with less in the coming years.

In hopes of meeting those challenges, they are beginning to think of new ways to collaborate with one another.

Yet the notion of Northern Michigan communities working alongside one another is nothing new. The tri-county 9-1-1 service, the local health department, North Country Community Mental Health and Straits Area Narcotics Enforcement all represent successful instances of collaborative efforts across multiple county boundaries. But earlier this month, the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments held a collaboration summit to get local leaders thinking of even more opportunities in that same direction.

Mathias McCauley, the director of regional planning and community development, helped organize the summit and said it was not only counties that should be thinking about how to collaborate with their neighbors.

"As all communities have to do more with less, they need to cooperatively engage one another in a way they can identify mechanisms to get more bang for their buck," he said. "Local units of government should be engaging in conversations on how they can most effectively deliver services. This same model applies to city, village and township governments as well."

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With a fair amount of experience working together, both Emmet and Charlevoix county officials are comfortable with the strategy. County controller Lyn Johnson explained that Emmet County joined the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments partly because of its long shared boundary with Cheboygan County.

"In tough economic times it's probably the easiest time to bring this idea up," he said. "But if it saves money and operates better in the long run, we need to do it."

Although leaders are not willing to start ticking off specific areas they may target without sitting down and talking with one another first, the possibility of regionalizing both the jails and geographic information systems have already been discussed in the past.

"When we talked about regionalization, cost is the driving factor and so is convenience," Chris Christensen, the chairman of the Charlevoix County board of commissioners, said. "It wouldn't make sense for people in Charlevoix to drive to Cheboygan to get information."

While Christensen said there may be a lot to gain from combining departments, he also pointed out the move would not be without its pitfalls.

"The Commission on Aging may have some possibilities," he said. "But where it gets difficult is with millages. We would still have to be able to prove all those dollars raised stay in the county."

In cost savings search, Emmet open to many options

Collaborations outside of Emmet County may not be the only place county controller Lyn Johnson is looking for savings.

Emmet County expects to see a $1.5 million reduction in its revenues between 2008 and 2009 and Johnson said the horizon does not look much better.

"The financial forecast for Michigan is not supposed to be good in 2010 and in 2011 it's supposed to be disastrous," he said.

Having restructured the county's retirement and health care plans, Johnson said he and his staff are examining a host of other possibilities.

"We've talked about allowing people to work from home," he said. "That could help reduce operating costs tremendously."

Although the board of commissioners voted down the idea of moving to four day work week for the entire county, Johnson said that idea is likely to surface again.

"I believe we'll revisit the concept of a four day work week again when we discuss budget cuts in 2010," Johnson added.

Johnson also said as the neighboring counties begin discussion of collaborating with one another, he is considering further internal consolidations. He said combining the planning department with building code department to form planning, zoning and construction resources helped by merging support staff and reducing the need from two managers to one. That move helped reduce the budget from almost $800,000 in 2007 to $420,000 in 2009.

"We're looking at the possibility of more for 2010," he said. "We should know by October or November."